Universal McCann’s Social Media Research

I was sent this PDF file containing Universal McCann’s Social Media Research for March 2008. The research surveyed 17,000 internet users in 29 countries. It’s an 80-page report that covers topics on blogging, online videos and social networking sites in general.

While the results of the survey are pretty interesting, I find some of them almost unbelievable (at least the ones that involved the Philippines). Take note however, that the sample population included in this research only involved people who used the internet daily or every other day aged between 16-54 years old. That means, the figures are skewed towards the hard core or heavy users.

McCann puts the Philippines’ Internet Penetration at 15.4% (based from InternetWorldStats.com).

• 90.3% of the respondents from the Philippines said they’ve read a blog at least once, ranking 2nd to South Korea at 92.1%. China came in 3rd at 88.1% while Global average is 77%.
• The Philippines ranked 4th (65.8%) on the respondents have started or created a blog. South Korea topped the list at 71.7%, followed by Taiwan (70.9%) and China (70.3%). Japan is No. 9 at only 47.3% which is strange since according to Technorati, Japanese is the #1 language in the blogosphere. Global average is 44.8%.
• The Philippines ranked #1 in joining a new social network sites (83.1%). Friendster rulez! hehehe
• Again, the Philippines ranked #1 on uploading photos on photo sharing sites with 86.4% of the respondents. Friendster rulez x 2!
• With online video, the Philippines (60.5%) is second to Brazil (68.3) on uploading videos to a video sharing site. YouTube Philippines should be in Tagalog so we can beat Brazil! Chinese came in 3rd at 58.1%.
• Filipinos are No. 1 viewers of online videos at 98.6%! iyotTube rocks! Oops, Youtube rocks!
• 61.8% of the respondents form the Philippines says they’ve downloaded a podcast. That’s 5th from the list after China, Mexico, Romania and Brazil.
• The Philippines ranked #6 in RSS subscribers at 45.2%, beating the Japanese (31.4%), Germans (27%), French (25.7%), Brits (24.9%), Canadians (18%), Australians (24.6%) and Americans (18.6%). Now that’s unbelievable.

The reason behind the skewed figures on the last item, RSS, is that the average Filipino “active” internet user is more tech-savvy than the average internet user in most western countries. Active means daily use or at least every other day. That means “active” internet use in the Philippines isn’t that mainstream yet. But that’s already evident from the internet usage penetration stats above.

Update: Copy of the research study can be downloaded here {PDF, 26MB}.